


things that change, and things that don't

by greyskieslatenights



Series: bite sized sebongies [4]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Post-disbandment, Character Study, Found Family, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Introspection, Speculation, hints of platonic jicheol bc that's how i live my life ig, i wrote this at 3am so if it's sad then that's why!!, lapslock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskieslatenights/pseuds/greyskieslatenights
Summary: fifteen years after debut, seventeen disbands. jihoon considers what this means to him.
Series: bite sized sebongies [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026706
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Seventeen Holidays





	things that change, and things that don't

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [17hols prompt fest round 1](https://17hols.dreamwidth.org/3914.html?thread=18762#cmt18762). has been edited a bit from the original.
> 
> prompt:
>
>> The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.
>> 
>> – For M, Mikko Harvey

_seventeen has officially disbanded. the members will be pursuing their own individual projects from now on._  
  
it's not that jihoon never saw this day coming—being an idol, a celebrity, is a career with an expiration date, inextricably linked to how much other people care about you and how much you care to please others. seventeen hasn't really been a group for years, not with varying members cycling in and out of the military, seungkwan appearing on a thousand different shows, mingyu and wonwoo's drama and movie appearances, soonyoung's ten-country solo concert tour, chan's own solo career and dance academy, junhui and minghao flying in and out of china, seokmin's musicals, hansol's jaunts producing and featuring with whoever strikes his whims, joshua and jeonghan's various business collaborations, seungcheol's attempts at fostering every dog under the sun. jihoon himself has been spending more time writing for other people than he has for any one of his groupmates, even if soonyoung does barge into his studio from time to time demanding that jihoon produce his next song. the last time they all stood on stage at the same time was for their thirteenth anniversary event, but jihoon can barely remember when the time before that was.  
  
it's easy to think that it's because they've grown apart, but it's not. they still have a group chat with all thirteen of them, where chan sends needlessly long and emotional messages, junhui leaves them all on read, hansol ignores whatever conversation's going on to inform people that he's getting chicken if anyone wants to join him, mingyu misspells every fifth word while wonwoo sends them all to naver dictionary trying to figure out what he's trying to say, and soonyoung sends too many tiger stickers. they get brunch, lunch, dinner, drinks with whoever's available whenever they can, but it's not the same.  
  
(jihoon usually hates noise, but as the years have gone on he's started to miss the chaos that only comes with thirteen rowdy men in an enclosed space.)  
  
it wasn't a hastily-made decision, not that these things could be when there's so much else that needs to be taken care of. they'd been skirting around the topic for at least a year, and discussions had escalated in the months leading up to the contract ending date. none of them really wanted to be the one that put the final nail in the coffin, to close this chapter of their lives, but it was obvious that none of them would be the one to round everyone up like the good old days. for a little while, jihoon wondered if seungcheol would try to hold them together the way he always used to, but jihoon knows he's been out of the limelight for the past few years and had no real interest in changing that anytime soon, and he's not the only one. jihoon doesn't begrudge him, or any of them, for making the choice that worked best for them, but change doesn't sit well with him. never has.

jihoon sits through the meetings mostly in silence, letting seungcheol talk to the agency and handle most of the logistics. their leader, doing his final leaderly duties. there's various business-y things to take care of, words like _intellectual property_ and _distribution rights_ thrown around that jihoon knows are probably important but can't emotionally bring himself to pay attention to. seungcheol will tell him later, anyway. he always does.  
  
it's strange, seeing the other twelve sitting at a long table with other agency executives. he's seen all of them in various places and member permutations within the past few months, but it's different, having them all together like this. it's a bit depressing that the only thing that's really brought all of them together was talking about how they were all going to separate.  
  
_my querencia_ , he'd called them. _my family, my brothers, my home._ he's never been the best at speaking his feelings, but he'd woven his affections for them in actions, in lyrics, in the entirety of his career—he owes everything to wonwoo's computer, after all. knowing that it's all over now, he wonders if he should've let soonyoung hug him more, or let jeonghan poke at his cheeks, or let more of chan's bad jokes slide. maybe he shouldn't have waved off minghao's invitations to go out and see the sights on their last tour five years ago, or declined joshua's suggestions to catch a movie, or passed on seokmin's offers to get sickly-sweet honey toast.  
  
(he's not filled solely with regrets—he's got years and years of memories to look back on fondly when he has a chance—but he can't help but feel like he's wasted so much time, knowing that forever was just an illusion. fifteen years seems so short, in retrospect.)  
  
_going seventy_ , they'd promised each other once. none of them had taken it all that seriously—jihoon can already feel his joints creak when even the faintest suggestion of jumping nonstop for three minutes enters his mind—but he couldn't help but hope that things wouldn't have to change. that they'd grow old and wrinkly together in the same apartment whose management kept joking to evict them because of all the noise complaints, hunched over in the same practice room after being winded from even simple aerobic exercises, huddled around the same microphone and trying to force wheezing gasps out of their too-old windpipes.  
  
they go out for dinner and drinks after, since they're already together and it feels wrong to not do _something_ to mark the occasion. mingyu calls a restaurant that he's on good terms with, managing to get a private room for all of them within thirty minutes.  
  
it's a tight fit, always has been, but jihoon can't find it in him to pretend to be mad when seokmin's elbow keeps knocking into him as flips over the meat, or when mingyu's beer sloshes over his glass to spray his shirt sleeve.  
  
about halfway into the meal, when most of them are well past the point of being sober, seungcheol stands up, glass held high.  
  
"i just wanted to say," he starts, voice thick and eyes shimmering, "that you guys are the best thing that ever happened to me. we'll always be seventeen, no matter what. i'll never forget you guys, and you better not forget me too, or i'll find you!"  
  
he tries to push a little bit of anger into his voice, the way he used to threaten them when they didn't wish him _happy birthday_ at twelve on the dot (they still don't, but they haven't celebrated his birthday in person in probably four years), but he's too choked up to make it work. they pretend they don't notice, as if they're not feeling the same way.

they all drink—even jihoon, who usually avoids alcohol like the plague but feels like he needs something to take the edge off of whatever he's feeling tonight. the beer is bitter on his tongue, difficult to swallow, but he thinks it's only fitting.  
  
chan stands up next, his face red and splotchy, launching into a spiel about how even though they might not be a k-pop group anymore, they've all made _history_ , and jihoon wants to laugh but doesn't. no one cuts him off, even though he talks for five minutes straight and only stops when wonwoo points out that the onions are burning.  
  
the dinner is interspersed with stupid games that devolve into shouting and more impromptu speeches, and for a couple of hours, jihoon almost thinks that nothing's changed at all, until he catches a glimpse of junhui's greying roots and the lines on jeonghan's face and he remembers why they're all here to start with.  
  
they stay far longer than they should—mingyu's flirt-apologizing profusely to the owner when they finally get shooed out of the restaurant, and the moon is high in the sky. there's an awkward moment of silence where they all stand outside the restaurant with nowhere to go—everyone lives on their own now, without the proper space to house thirteen grown men.  
  
eventually, one by one, they fade off into the night, too-long hugs and promises to meet again shared all around before they duck into taxis and head home.  
  
_home_ , where none of them are together anymore.  
  
eventually, just him and seungcheol are left—jihoon figures that some kind of residual leaderly responsibility refused to let seungcheol leave until everyone else did, and jihoon's just trying to hold onto this moment for as long as he can.  
  
full circle, jihoon muses, that they were the first to join and now the last to leave.  
  
"coups-hyung," jihoon says, the name spilling from his lips on instinct. he's not even sure what he wants to say, but the silence was stifling and he couldn't take another second of it.  
  
"i'm not coups-hyung anymore," seungcheol laughs, eyes fond. there are wrinkles around his eyes that jihoon swears weren't there when they'd gotten lunch last week, but maybe he hadn't been looking hard enough.  
  
(maybe he hadn't wanted to look.)  
  
"seungcheol-hyung." the syllables feel strange in his mouth—it's not that he'd never referred to the elder by name after their debut, but something about knowing that this is the _only_ name he should be called bothers him. jihoon's been calling him coups for nearly two decades, and he wonders if it'll take as long for that to stop being second nature.  
  
"do you want to come over?" jihoon asks. _please don't leave me alone_ , he thinks, and hopes that seungcheol can still read him as easily as he always has.  
  
seungcheol smiles, sincere as ever as he slings an arm over jihoon's shoulders. if he closes his eyes, they could be fifteen and sixteen again, bright eyed and bushy-tailed and chasing their dreams. the thought is comforting, somehow. "okay, jihoonie."  
  
_maybe_ , jihoon muses, _some things don't have to change._

**Author's Note:**

> when i first read the quote it really screamed _jihoon_ to me, because i feel like he doesn't show his affection in an obvious way on a daily basis but whenever he's directly asked what seventeen means to him, he always says they're his family ;;;;; so i wanted to capture the feeling that even though he accepts their new reality, there are things he still wants to cling to and has a hard time letting go of. 
> 
> i also spent far too long pondering my assorted metas for every member while i was writing this tbh, trying to place them in the future with what i think they'd be doing a decade from now lol. ~~jeonghan cow herder 2030, anyone?~~
> 
> catch me on twitter [twitter](https://twitter.com/soft_coups) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/soft_coups)!


End file.
